A few months back I was asked to be interviewed by a friend of mine Alan Stewart (aka “Mamemeister”) who runs a cracking YouTube channel covering all things retro gaming. The interview went on a bit, and before we knew it, we’d talked for a good two hours about Missile Command and 80s arcade machines….
Tag: atari
Atari Gravitar: Weekend Pickup!
I’ve been eyeing up these third generation Atari Vector cabinets for some time now. Space Duel is a particular favourite of mine, and I’ve been banging on about wanting a Quantum for years. My issue to date has been twofold: Space. I have very little of it, and these vector cabs are large beasts. These…
Pete Davies: The ‘Invadar’ Arcade Collection
One of the very early committed arcade collectors here in the UK was a guy called Pete Davies. Known on the arcade forums as Invadar, he was by all accounts, very well liked. I can’t say that I knew him on a personal level (I’m not sure that many people did), but was obviously aware…
The Secret History of the Arcade Trackball
The trackball as a method of user interface control has been around for some time. In terms of public consciousness, I would argue that arcade games pioneered their widespread use by getting them literally in the hands of a mainstream consumer audience. The best way to get someone using a new device, is to put…
Atari Tempest: Time-Lapse Photography
Thought we’d try something different this week. For the record, I am definitely a ‘point and click’ photographer – my mobile phone has always been my camera of choice. The extent of my photography skills is using an image size optimiser for the pictures I post here on the blog. Manipulating images and setting ISO…
Tomcat: Atari’s Lost Vector Game
With a total roster of thirteen vector releases, Atari were undoubtedly the kings of wire-frame arcade games. It all began with Lunar Lander and then Asteroids. Released in 1979, these two games heralded the company’s innovative intent, and arguably began the Golden Age of videogames. Whereas traditional raster arcade monitors house an electron gun that…
Atari Centipede Upright Restoration 2
So things are going well with the restoration of the Centipede upright. Everything has been stripped out pretty much. We have a cleaned up marquee, bezel, control panel and monitor. Time to take a look at the inside and outside of the cab itself. Things aren’t pretty there. General grime, dead insects and dirt greet…
Super Rare Atari Centipede Cocktail Surfaces!
Close examination of the original promotional flyer for Atari’s 1981 Centipede arcade cabinet shows three styles of cab; from left to right, a cabaret, upright and cocktail. Nothing particularly unusual there, as most releases around that time looked to house themselves in a similar portfolio of cabinet designs: But further inspection of the cocktail cabinet…
Atari Centipede Upright Restoration 1
I picked this cabinet up a few weeks back (you can read about that adventure here). Upright Centipedes are lovely looking machines; the artwork is arguably the most iconic of Atari’s efforts from the early eighties. Over 45,000 of these units were built, making it one of the great commercial successes of the company’s early 80s…
Tales from the Arcade Factory Floors
The rarity of an arcade cabinet is very subjective. Just because a game is old, doesn’t necessarily mean it should be regarded as rare. After 1984, when the video arcade market pretty much crashed, the production numbers went down from tens of thousands, to single digit thousand production runs. So in many cases, you are…
The Arcade Blogger 